HAYS COUNTY, Texas — Hays County has revoked Kinder Morgan’s permits to cut through and bore under county roads for the controversial Permian Highway Pipeline project.

  • Drilling accident spilled 36,000 gallons of drilling fluid into the Trinity Aquifer
  • The spill contaminated personal wells
  • Accident confirmed some people’s fears about pipeline

The Hays County Commissioner’s Court announced the move late in the afternoon on Wednesday, April 22.

Back in March, an accident at a drilling site on the Blanco River spilled 36,000 gallons of drilling fluid into the Trinity Aquifer, contaminating some nearby wells.

For Hill Country landowners like the Beckers, the accident confirms their worst fears about the pipeline.


Photo of the Beckers on their property in Wimberley (Niki Griswold/Spectrum News)

 

“Our drinking water is superb,” said Arlene Becker. “Everybody that comes here, and we have a lot of company, says how good the water is. I have a niece who fills up gallon jugs.”

“It’s quite excellent quality water, straight out of the ground,” added Larry Becker.

The Trinity Aquifer is the sole source of water for the Beckers’ property out in Wimberley, and it’s what drew the born-and-raised Texans to the Hill Country.

“We lived in Austin in the mid ‘70s, Larry went to UT, and we have spent a lot of time in this area,” said Arlene. “We just always knew that this is where we wanted to end up, you know, to live our life out.”


Photo of the Kinder Morgan pipeline’s path through Hays County (Niki Griswold/Spectrum News)

 

But they’re concerned that the landscape they love is in jeopardy due to Kinder Morgan’s Permian Highway Pipeline.

Last month when Kinder Morgan construction crews were drilling at a site on the Blanco River, they hit a karst, or a void, in the rock, spilling 36,000 gallons of drilling fluid into the Trinity Aquifer.

It soon contaminated the personal wells of nearby landowners, and the Beckers say the accident confirmed their long-held concerns about the project.

“They’re going through an area that’s very heavily-ridden with karst, cave areas — that’s an area that we knew was very vulnerable, and we were concerned from the beginning,” said Larry Becker. “We knew it was just a matter of time. We said, you know, I mean basically, ‘We told you so.’ They did exactly what we were afraid they might do.”


Photo of the Kinder Morgan pipeline’s path through Hays County (Niki Griswold/Spectrum News)

 

The Beckers can see the pipeline’s path from their front yard, and now they’re worried another accident could contaminate their personal well.

“There’s no plan B if you mess up the aquifers,” said Arlene. “It’d be terrible, devastating.”

“There are three or four landowners who are dealing with that problem right now,” said Larry Becker, referring to the recent drilling accident on the Blanco River that contaminated personal wells. “And you can imagine this is the worst time right now with the COVID-19 pandemic, because they have no place to retreat.”

“What do you do with your home? You can’t bathe, you can’t cook. All the appliances, the pipes have been contaminated. It’s horrible,” said Arlene Becker.

As a result, Hays County has rescinded Kinder Morgan’s permits to cut through and bore under its county roads.

“Following what happened in Blanco County, we became concerned, we know that in western Hays County there are a lot of karst features, recharge features,” said Hays County Precinct 3 Commissioner Lon Shell. “Groundwater is what western Hays County lives off of, and many of our residents out there rely on their groundwater for their daily lives, and we don’t want to do anything or allow anyone to do anything to jeopardize that.”

The permits will remain rescinded until the Kinder Morgan complies with the Texas Railroad Commission’s Notice of Violation for the Blanco County accident, and can provide a mitigation plan to prevent it from happening again.

Hays County staff are now working on a list of criteria for Kinder Morgan to meet in order to reissue the permits.


Photo of the Kinder Morgan pipeline’s path through Hays County (Niki Griswold/Spectrum News)

 

“The first thing is to be in full compliance with the Railroad Commission,” said Shell. “Beyond that, I think we’d like to have some additional geology work done at those crossings, some analysis to first see if there are karst features, and if there are there would be some measures that would be taken — notification of well owners, probably within a 2-mile radius, maybe even take some samples of those wells prior to construction to have a baseline. And maybe even do some ground penetrating radar to make sure that if there are karsts we identify exactly where they are and we plan accordingly, as far as their crossing into our right of way.”

The county will present that plan to the Hays County Commissioner’s court in the coming weeks, before submitting it to Kinder Morgan.

According to a Kinder Morgan spokesperson, the permit revocation impacts construction at the three Hays County roads where the pipeline is set to cross.

“We have 16 counties on this project, and we work with each one of those counties. Each county has a different process for permitting regarding road crossings, and we work through that with all of the counties and with Hays County,” said Allen Fore, Vice President of Public Affairs at Kinder Morgan. “If additional information is needed we’re going to be following that and following the guidance of the county engineer in doing that and making sure that we get the information that is needed to the county, so we can move forward to their satisfaction.”

Fore added that pipeline construction is currently on pause at the Blanco River site, as well as the crossings at the three Hays County roads, but that construction on the pipeline continues elsewhere in the state.

The Beckers have been part of the local fight against the pipeline from the start, and despite this development, they say it’s far from over.

“It’s one little battle won in a war. That’s what it is, you know, little by little,” said Arlene Becker.

“Because no one want’s this here,” added Larry Becker. “Put it in a place that has less environmental impact and more respect to landowners.”  

“Not through the Texas Hill Country,” said Arlene Becker.

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